


hand in unlovable hand

by ftmsteverogers



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: AU, CACW AU, Canon Divergence, M/M, mlm author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-10 09:03:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7838725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftmsteverogers/pseuds/ftmsteverogers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So lemme get this straight,” Sam said, and Bucky was impressed by how well he was hanging onto his dignity, considering the Hello Kitty ice pack that was currently obstructing most of his face from view.  “You got to the winter soldiers before Zemo did, you had a clear shot, and you decided to break them out instead?”</p><p>“Technically, it was Bucky’s idea,” Steve said awkwardly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hand in unlovable hand

 “Do you remember her?  Dot was her name,” Steve said, smiling cautiously.

In all honesty, it wasn’t the girl that Bucky remembered, it was the sticky clutch of Steve’s hand to his elbow as he pulled him toward the carnival games with ice cream smudged over his chin.  Sunshine like sparkling lemonade, the evening a long promise in front of them, and Steve’s little hand with the long fingers tugging at his sleeve.  Bucky had always noticed the places Steve wasn’t small.  His pianist’s fingers of course, and his crooked nose, and his long skinny feet, all of them tallied up as ammunition for the next time Steve got that self-deprecating smile on his face.  Bucky knew how to deal with Steve’s self-loathing.  He was armed to the teeth.

So, no, the girl he flirted with mildly by the candy apple stall didn’t stick in his mind the way Steve’s cotton-candy smile did, the sunset gilding his hair when their carriage hit the top of the ferris wheel.  Bucky chewed his candy apple stick and watched Steve watch the world spill out beneath their kicking feet.  Steve was resting his chin on the guard rail.  He looked like he was thinking real hard.  Bucky leaned back and let his eyes drift closed, contemplating the last few rays of sunset that glittered through his eyelashes.

Eighty-three years later and Bucky was looking at Steve’s mouth as he told bits of the story the way he recalled it.  Steve remembered more flirting with the girl; Bucky with a thumb tucked under his suspender, hat tipped at a jaunty angle so as not to disrupt the dark wave of hair that swept over his brow, smiling down at her like she was the only thing worth looking at.  

Bucky could only remember his awkward laugh, a butchered joke, and the way he stumbled over his own name when he tried to tell it to her.  The suave teenager Steve remembered had not gone to the carnival, if he had ever existed in the first place.

“Bet she’s a hundred years old, now,” Bucky said, holding very still under Steve’s hand on his shoulder.  He did not want to accidentally shrug it off.

“So are we, pal,” Steve said, and his smile finally touched his eyes.

Bucky wondered, as he and Steve stepped out of the mouth of the plane, if saying “who the hell is Dot” would be in bad taste.

 

* * *

 

He hadn’t known if he was going to feel anything when he stepped inside this place.  He'd been cocooned in cryostasis when he'd lived here for decades, but he felt fear slither through him when he entered the hall, an unmistakable _I am disobeying orders and will be punished for it_ feeling.  It pooled acidly in the pit of his stomach, and that answered his question.

“Did we beat Zemo here?” Steve asked, incredulous.

Bucky’s mouth had gone dry.  Zemo was the last thing on his mind.  “Get in, get out, worry about Zemo after?” he suggested.  Steve only waited a beat before nodding.

The huge cryo tanks shoved up against the walls weren’t the prototype that Bucky had been kept in.  His tank, the first of its kind, had been big and clunky and occasionally ineffective, thawing him out for hours at a time until his banging fists against the bulletproof glass drew a pale-faced scientist to the window.  He welcomed the sedative they injected him with at those times.  He slept fitfully in cryostasis, sliding from dream to dream, muscles aching from disuse every time he was wakened.  The sedatives knocked him out cold.  He didn’t ache, didn’t dream, and it was kinder that way.  Softer.

He touched the glass in front of him now with his fingertips, looked at the face inside.  The man’s head was lolled forward, brown hair falling into his face.

“What’s our play, Buck?” Steve asked, voice quiet in the echoey room.  “Do you want to - you don’t have to do this, you know.  You can step outside.  I’ll take care of this.”

“You aren’t the assassin here, Steve,” Bucky said tiredly.  His hand was still on the surface of the tank, breath fogging the glass.  “That’s my job.”

It would have been a more gentle world if he had been able to step outside.  He would have handed Steve his gun, looked away as Steve screwed on the silencer, and walked to the door with the sleeping eyes of the five other Soldiers soft and closed.  They would not know he was there.  He could put his hands over his ears and would not even hear the gunshots.

But the world was not gentle, and he knew this.

“Together, then?” Steve asked, guilt and concern on his face.

“Yeah,” Bucky answered, sliding the safety off his gun with an audible click.  “Ready?”

Steve looked a little nauseous, but he aimed his gun with steady hands, the blonde woman's head in his crosshairs.  Bucky followed suit.  He was aiming for the leader, the one with the long hair and the rag-doll neck.

 _The Winter Soldier, if he exists, is the most highly-trained assassin in all of Europe, perhaps America_ , the SHIELD dossier had said.  _He operates without remorse and without compassion.  He does his work quickly, efficiently, and then disappears back into the mist for another decade._

Would he have minded if someone had put him out of his misery sometime between 1945 and 2016?  No one would have mourned him, not even the HYDRA agents that had given birth to him.  His body would have been incinerated, leaving nothing but the battered metal arm and a couple of teeth.  He would not have been missed or remembered.

“Wait, Steve, stop,” he interrupted just as Steve curled his finger around the trigger.

Steve startled and nearly dropped his gun.  “What?”

“I can’t do this,” Bucky said, and threw the gun’s strap over his shoulder.  “Help me.  We have to move quickly before Zemo gets here.”

Steve lowered his gun.  “What are you doing?” he asked, joining Bucky at the control panel that Bucky had begun to poke at.  It lit up blue for him, his fingerprint recognized, all five of the cryo tanks beeping pleasantly.

“Changing my mind,” Bucky said.  “You gonna help or not?”

“Tell me what to do,” Steve said.  He didn’t even miss a beat.

 

* * *

 

Bucky had zip ties on him - Steve looked vaguely disappointed when Bucky pulled them out of his vest pocket, but not surprised - and they tied up the five winter soldiers once they had hauled them out of their tanks and put them in the belly of the plane.  They slumped against each other when Bucky put them down.  Still reaching for each other, even when unconscious, and it made Bucky’s throat tighten to look at them.

“Where the hell are we gonna take them, Buck?” Steve asked from the cockpit.

“I don’t know,” Bucky said.  “Far away.”

Steve was quiet for a long moment, and then he turned the engine on.  Bucky strapped himself into his seat directly across from the five sleeping soldiers and watched them, aching, hands in fists in his lap.

 

* * *

 

The soldiers started waking up about halfway to Natasha’s emergency safe house.  Bucky knew the zip ties wouldn’t hold them if they were actually serious about escaping, but he also knew that they were used to being moved at odd hours by strange people.  He was fairly confident they wouldn’t put up much of a fight.

Assuming, of course, that they didn’t recognize him.

The tall one with the broad shoulders and a thick beard to match his long straggly hair was the first to wake.  His eyes opened and he snapped upright, fear flashing briefly over his face before he managed to lock it away.  Bucky knew that look.  Disoriented panic, that was that look, untethered fear that had to be bit down before the handlers caught wise.

“Got a name?” Bucky asked, maintaining eye contact, though it made his chest hurt.

“No,” the soldier said.  His voice was rough from disuse.  “I am designated asset 17.”

“Well, that ain’t gonna do.”  Bucky held out his left hand to shake.  “I’m Bucky.”

17 looked at Bucky’s hand blankly.

“You’re supposed to shake it,” Bucky explained, his smile wan.

17 reached up with his zip-tied hands to shake Bucky’s warily.  The blonde woman to his left began to stir just as he was letting go, and then 17 completely forgot Bucky was there.

“Cálmese, mija, estoy aquí,” 17 said, quiet and soothing, and reached out to her.  Her tiny hands disappeared inside his when he took them.  “¿Estás bien?”

The woman nodded, but her eyes were on Bucky.  “¿Quien es el?” she asked, suspicious.

"Dice que su nombre es Bucky," 17 answered.  "El soldado del invierno."

Bucky stiffened.  So they did know who he was.  He had feared as much; they’d battled and trained several times, and HYDRA had perfected its mind-wiping techniques enough by the time these five came along to leave certain information inside their heads.  Like the Winter Soldier’s identity.  The very first asset of them all.

“Do _you_ have a name?” Bucky asked, and then paused.  “Ah - tienes un nombre?”

She glanced at 17 before she answered.  “I am designated asset 19.”

Bucky nodded at the others.  “What about them?”

“Units 18, 20, and 23.”

Bucky rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.  “Well, shit,” he said.  “I can’t name you _all_ after me.”

 

* * *

 

The others were awake before the little plane finally touched down.  Bucky had long since stopped trying to engage them in conversation - they were all murmuring together in a mix of several languages, pieces of German and Russian and Spanish and several others he couldn’t quite pick out.  He stopped trying to piece it together pretty quickly.  It was something entirely new, at this point, and hopping between languages at their rapid-fire pace was doing nothing but give him a headache.

He could feel them looking at him every once in a while, though.  _Ears burning, Barnes?_ He wondered as he joined Steve in the cockpit.

“How are they?” Steve asked, glancing up at Bucky briefly before turning his eyes back to the road.  “Not escaping?”

“Freaking out and arguing about something in French and Hebrew, but not escaping.”  Bucky touched his jaw, frowning.  “Not sure they know what’s happening to them, other than the fact that they were kidnapped by the Winter Soldier & co.”

Steve winced.  “What the fuck do we say?”

Bucky shrugged.  “The truth, probably,” he said.  “What other excuse could we possibly have?”

Steve huffed a small laugh, but he didn’t say anything else, and that was telling enough all by itself.

Bucky buckled himself into the passenger seat so Steve wouldn’t worry about him dying when they touched down.

 

* * *

 

Bucky cut off the zip ties when they got to the house.  The soldiers refused to be separated when Bucky took them inside, so Bucky made Steve help him drag four extra beds into one of the bedrooms and shove them up together.

The soldiers shuffled into the room, all five of them together, watching Steve and Bucky work.  20 was in front of the rest of them, but Bucky suspected it was because he was the largest, not because of any authority over the others.  19 and 17 were the ones in charge - they peered over 20’s broad shoulders with suspicious eyes that tracked the motion of Steve’s arms as his muscles moved under his skin.

Bucky didn’t blame them.  There was a strength knotted up under Steve’s skin that had nothing to do with the serum, and it was visible to the naked eye.  Although he had come to respect it, there was still a part of Bucky that feared it with good reason.  Steve was a desperate animal underneath his righteous fury.  Bucky did not envy his enemies.

“I’ll get some extra bedding,” Steve said with a meaningful look at Bucky that Bucky took to mean _Stay and watch these people we kidnapped, and please don’t let them do what kidnapped soldiers usually do._  Bucky nodded and bit back the urge to salute.

“Soldado,” 19 said.  “Why are we here?”

Bucky rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.   _Because I’m too soft to put you out of your misery._ “Because this house is the only safe place we know.”

19 frowned, confused, so 17 jumped in.  “She means, what is our mission?” he clarified.  “You would not take us unless you wanted us for a mission.”

18 and 23 blinked at Bucky owlishly when Bucky interrogated them with his stare.  20, the brave one, held his gaze with a clenched jaw and narrowed eyes.

“According to the newspapers,” Bucky finally said, “HYDRA is dead.  And we killed it.”

There were several startled breaths around the room, stifled poorly.

“Is it?” 18 asked.  “Did you?”

“No,” Bucky answered.  “But I tried.”

19 still looked confused.  “So.”  She looked up at 17 before back at Bucky.  “Our mission is...?”

Bucky smiled slightly, then, although it sat oddly on his face.  “Here’s our mission.  Okay?  Get better.  Be stronger.”  He wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue.  “Stay alive.”

 

* * *

 

“I’m _bored_ ,” Steve had said in 1936, age eighteen, shivering even as he was bundled up under four blankets.  “I need something to do.”

Bucky was fresh out of sympathy after a long day of hauling fruit crates around for Mr. Shapiro down the street.  “Get better,” he said, kicking off his shoes.  “Be stronger.  Stay alive.”

“Easier said than done, asshole,” Steve chattered.  “I’m _dying_.”

“Well, do it quieter for a little, will you?” Bucky said, tucking his aching feet under Steve’s leg for a little warmth.  He slung an arm over his eyes.  “You ain’t the only one.”

Steve patted his ankle consolingly.  “There, there.  I’m sure there’s nothing dangerous about those fruits you’ve been handling.  Your grubby paws are perfectly safe.”

“You’re a fruit,” Bucky mumbled to himself, but he was fairly certain Steve didn’t hear him because he wasn’t being punched in the shin.

“Go to bed, Buck,” Steve said.  “I can hear you snoring already.”

Bucky complained colorfully, but he eventually allowed himself to be nudged off the couch by Steve’s bony foot.  It only took a little effort to pull Steve up and along with him.

 

* * *

 

“They want a mission?” Steve asked, concerned, when Bucky told him what had happened while he’d been rummaging through the linen cupboard.  “Are they restless?”

“They’re at loose ends,” Bucky corrected.  “Don’t know what to do without orders to follow.”

Steve was making the particularly annoying face that meant he was staying quiet just in case Bucky wanted to talk about what had happened to him.  Bucky hated that face.  He never knew what to do with it.  He wasn’t going to talk, not with Steve listening so intently, and the guilt that was pooling behind Steve’s eyes wasn’t helping.

“How do we help?” Steve asked, once it became obvious that Bucky was keeping his mouth shut.

Bucky looked over his shoulder to where he could see the five soldiers sleeping in the enormous bed made of five twin mattresses shoved together.  They were all holding on tight to each other’s borrowed pajama shirts.

“Well, we either let them go crazy,” he said, “Or we give them some fucking orders.”

Steve looked vaguely nauseous.  “How do we tell which to do?”

Bucky huffed a small, amused breath.  “Well, it’s easy,” he said, and sighed through his teeth.  “We pick the one that we can live with.  And if that doesn’t work, the other option’ll be the only one left, so it isn’t a choice.”

Steve cocked his head to the side, thinking.  “That’s actually pretty smart.”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Bucky said, wrinkling his nose, and took the short stack of towels from Steve’s arms to put them near the foot of the the soldiers’ bed.

 

* * *

 

Natasha called them in the morning, checking in.  She sounded stressed.  The fact that her feelings were obvious to the casual listener meant that it had to be pretty bad on her end, and Steve said she was probably ducking Tony’s calls, trying to break Clint out of prison without making it look like she’d picked Steve’s side.

Bucky understood the need for neutrality.  The desire to squeeze small and live in the corners of every room was lurking over his shoulder wherever he went, directing him out of crowds and right back behind Steve’s shadow.  He was tired.  He wanted to sleep for a long time, maybe even go back under, if only so that he could have a couple days without people talking to him or asking about his feelings.  The only feeling he cared about was the urge to escape that was digging its claws into him.

But that wasn’t quite true, and he couldn’t even think it to himself without a little voice in the back of his head calling him out on his shit.  He did want to escape, that part was true enough, but he wanted to escape with Steve at his side.  He did not want to leave Steve behind again.  And these other soldiers, strangers who had been put through the same torture he had - he was vaguely surprised to find that he did not want to leave them behind either.

If he kept adding people to the list, he was never gonna make it out alive.

“Okay, Nat.  We’ll talk to you later.” Steve put his fingertips over the mouthpiece of the phone.  “Wanna talk to her?”

Bucky looked at him flatly, arms crossed over his chest.

“Bucky’s busy,” Steve said, taking his fingers off the mic.  “Sorry.  We’ll check in tomorrow.”

Bucky waited until he hung up to nudge him with the toe of his boot.  “Two things.”

Steve turned to him, putting his phone in his pocket.  “Shoot.”

“First, breakfast,” Bucky said.  “They’ve got the serum, they’re gonna be starving by now.”

“Okay,” Steve said, nodding slowly.  “I can do a bagel run.”

Bucky nodded back.  It felt good to be on the same page.  “Second, we need to get them some names.  I can’t keep the numbers straight.”

“Aw, it isn’t that hard.  20’s the big one, 17 is the really young one - ”

“17 is the tall one with the beard.  18 is the young one.”

“And 19 is the blonde one?”

“She is, yeah.”

“And 23 is the one with the tattoos.”

“20 has tattoos, 23 has the crazy eyes.”

Steve winced.  “Okay.  You may have a point.”

Bucky shrugged.  “I’m telling you.  We need to get ‘em some names.”

“Well, do _you_ wanna go in there and figure out what to call em?” Steve asked incredulously.  “Name ‘em like ducklings?”

Bucky smiled.  “Ducklings?”

Steve waved a hand, flustered.  “You know what I mean.”

Bucky did know what he meant, so he let it go, but the smile was lurking inside his mouth.  He could taste it under his tongue like a drop of honey.

 

* * *

 

Steve went out to get bagels and Bucky went into the soldiers’ bedroom with a bunch of baby name websites pulled up on his phone.  He didn’t know what to expect when he opened the door, but it definitely wasn’t this - all five beds separated again and shoved up against the walls to clear floor space in the middle, 19 and 17 going at it, tussling with the kind of deadly precision that only HYDRA training could get you.  Bucky could vaguely remember fighting Natasha like that, her thighs around his neck, his hands clawing at her back.  

 _Red Room foreplay_ , the HYDRA execs used to call it, laughing behind their cups of coffee.  It hadn’t been sexual, not for Bucky, but he could not deny that there was affection behind it.  He showed her how to stay alive and she reminded him why staying alive was important.  He knew what HYDRA family looked like, and this wrestling was it: beating each other up gently so that when the real punches came, they would not be caught unprepared.  Holding each other in a headlock so that they were close enough to feel each other’s hearts beating.

23 and 20 were sitting on one of the beds, watching the fight.  18 was testing the locks on the windows, either figuring out how protected he was or trying to decide how to escape.  Bucky wasn’t sure which was more plausible.  He knew that this was Natasha’s safe house, so the glass was probably reinforced, and there would be more security measures than would be obvious to the naked eye.  He admired 18’s dedication, though.

He sat on the edge of the bed nearest the door and watched 19 and 17 fight.  They were elegant.  17 wasn’t pulling his punches, and 19 was using her slight frame to move wickedly fast around him, testing for openings and weaknesses.  Her fighting style was very familiar.  Bucky wondered when she’d been taken, and if he had known her in the Red Room.  He wondered what other small, deadly faces he had forgotten.

The fight ended when 19 kicked 17 in the stomach and then took the opportunity to sweep 17’s legs out from under him.  She had a knee to his throat in less than two seconds - Bucky knew he wasn’t imagining it when 17 shot her a lightning-quick, wondering smile.

“Good form,” Bucky said.  “But you could’ve had him on the ground a lot sooner if you hadn’t wasted so much time being cautious.”

19 panted, wiping her brow with the back of her hand.  “Caution saves your life.”

Bucky rose from the bed, dusting his hands off on his pants.  “Caution’ll kill you.  17, c’mere.”  17 looked to 19, and only moved to Bucky once she nodded.  “Okay.  If I test here and here - ” Bucky took the flat of his hand and slowly tapped two of 17’s weaker spots.  “ - And I see that there’s an opening?  Don’t wait.  Otherwise he’ll catch on, and then your opening is gone.”

19 studied 17’s body with a critical gaze until she caught what Bucky was trying to explain.  “So the stories are true,” she said, and touched the soft place between two of 17’s ribs.  “You were the Red Room’s schoolteacher.”

“I was the Red Room’s lap dog,” Bucky said.  “But I like your story better.”

 

* * *

 

The five soldiers plus Bucky all crowded around the table once Steve got home.  Bucky had earned some respect with the fighting show earlier, and the fact that he’d been imbedded in the same HYDRA niche gave them a common language, but he knew that they didn’t trust him yet.  That was alright.  He didn’t trust them yet, either.  He didn’t even trust himself.

The only person he trusted was Steve.

“We were always assigned our code names,” 18 - the one who had been testing the windows for weaknesses - said around a mouthful of lox.  “Why won’t you just give them to us?”

Bucky shared a glance with Steve over the cream cheese.  He’d considered it, honestly, but it felt wrong to choose something like that for people who hadn’t had much of any choice in their life.  And, knowing Steve, they’d end up with names like Fred or Bob, anyway, so Bucky was honestly doing them a favor.

“It’s your job this time,” was all Bucky said.  “And think about it carefully.  ‘S important.”

18 nodded thoughtfully, her short dark hair falling into her eyes, but 20 and 23 looked skeptical.  19 was muttering something in 17’s ear.  Bucky could feel Steve’s foot press against his under the table, so he looked up, one eyebrow raised.

“Is this what parenting is like?” Steve whispered, leaning into Bucky’s space with a grin.

Bucky snorted.  “Little old for new parents, aren’t we?”

Steve shrugged.  “Better late than never?”

 

* * *

 

Usually at this point, Steve would call up Tony and ask him to run an identity scan on the five soldiers so that they would find their true identities.  There was no one to say “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes” to them, no one left who knew who they were - but Tony was no longer an option, and Bucky could see Steve struggling with that.

In the end, it wasn’t actually all that hard to get them to choose names for themselves.  Natasha suggested they ask them what their favorite alias had been, and then let them take that name.  Bucky was concerned that would confuse them more, but 19’s eyes lit up when he asked her the question, so Natasha may have been onto something.

“Lucy,” she said, and shared a loaded glance with 17.  “I will be Lucy.”

For the first time since the soldiers had been taken into their custody, Bucky caught a hint of a smile on 17’s face.

17 chose next, decided to be Roque, and 18, 20, and 23 becaume Renée, Joshua, and Michael.

Bucky looked at them all, struggling to fit their new names in their mouths, and felt his heart swell in his chest, ribs aching.

“Well,” Steve said, glancing around the table with eyes that didn’t know whether to be apprehensive or proud.  “It’s good to meet you all.”

 

* * *

 

The WWII war front was the landscape that Bucky knew best.  Even now, lying in his bed, he could picture the rough terrain in full color, dead grass shooting up lethargically from the ground, trees tall and hopeless and leaning against each other.  Bucky used to find the smallest places to hole up, waiting for Steve’s command to shoot his sniper rifle.  He would stay up high, cocooned in foliage at the top of some hill, and watch the other Howling Commandos fight.  His eyes got used to seeing Steve through crosshairs.  His body got used to learning the land on his stomach.

Even now, as he lay sleeping in Natasha’s safe house, he could feel the hard ground under his elbows.  The air had been so cold he could taste it.  And Steve - Steve would look up at him from the ground and grin, breath fogging in front of his lips, and Bucky would look at that mouth through his crosshairs -

He woke, warm and confused, his legs tangled in the sheets.  He could feel his heart hammering in his chest, and he rubbed a hand over his sternum, wondering what the fuck it was he was remembering.

 

* * *

 

Natasha was sitting on the kitchen table, walking Renée through the process of flipping a fried egg.  She was calm in the face of Renée’s frustration, gentle where she had to be, and Bucky was watching her from the doorway.  She knew he was there, of course.  Bucky was never going to make the mistake of underestimating her.  He was just glad she was letting him see her like this, soft and open where she was usually unafraid to let everybody see the steel under the cream and sugar.

Bucky could remember learning how to cook again.  He’d watched youtube tutorials using stolen wifi from the apartment above him in Bucharest.  He’d bought more fresh produce from the farmer’s market than he’d ever had in Brooklyn.  He’d known the muscle memory was locked up in his body somewhere - somewhere in the ligaments, somewhere in the many tiny bones of his right hand - but it had taken many tries to get the memory to surface.

He looked at Renée, concentrating hard on her cast-iron skillet, and felt an ache in his right hand again.  It had been a while since he’d felt that particular ache.

“There you go,” Natasha said, a smile in her voice.  Renée was smiling back, Bucky could see it.  Her egg was neatly flipped in the middle of the pan.  “Go ahead and eat it, honey, the others aren’t awake yet.”

With that, she hopped off the table and left Renée standing proudly over the sink, egg pan still in hand.  She didn’t seem to want to put it down.

“Barnes,” Natasha said, finally meeting his eyes.

“Romanova,” Bucky said.  He wasn’t sure what he was seeing on her face.

She cocked her head to the side.  “Do you remember me?”

Bucky wetted his lips.  Slowly, telegraphing his movement, he reached forward and brushed his fingertips over the soft swell of her lower belly.  He could feel the raised scar tissue through her thin t-shirt.  “Sorry,” he said.  “You were in the way.”

She smiled slightly, one half of her mouth quirking up before the other.  “I always did wonder why you didn’t take the headshot.”  She took his hand, squeezing it once.  “Guess I know now.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed.  “What d’you mean?”

“Well,” she said, a laugh lurking somewhere in her voice, “It wasn’t you calling the shots.  But you rebelled when you could, I see that now.”

Bucky had never thought about it like that before.  It made his stomach feel light, warmth trickling through his body.   _Rebel_ , he thought, trying out the word.  He didn’t take the headshot, he never took the headshot when he could avoid it.  _I rebelled when I could._

“What else do you remember?” Natasha asked.  There was something she was searching for in Bucky’s eyes, but Bucky was reticent to give it to her.

“Natalia,” he said softly.  “I’m not the man you knew.  Not anymore.”

She was still searching.  “Are you Steve’s Bucky, then?  Fresh from the ‘40s?”

“No.”  Bucky looked away, eyes falling on Renée, who was eating her egg in the kitchen.  “I’m someone else altogether.”

“Good,” Natasha said.  She let go of Bucky’s hand.  “So am I.”

 

* * *

 

Steve went shopping for some clothes to replace the ratty work suits the soldiers had arrived in.  Bucky took the opportunity to run through a couple training exercises with the soldiers, trying to work off some of the nervous energy they carried around with them everywhere they went. Lucy and Roque opted out to pace the house the way they did twice a day, either to test for weaknesses or check for intrusion, but the others seemed game enough.

All three of them liked the exercise, but it was Joshua who seemed to be enjoying himself the most, excitement humming through his whole body.  They all knew how to wear a mask to hide whatever it was that was going on in their heads - HYDRA taught you to cover that shit up quick - but Bucky knew how to see happiness in the lines of the body instead of the face.

Joshua and Michael were circling each other on the floor, bare-footed and stripped down to their undershirts, and Bucky was perched on the bed next to Renée.  She was the smallest one of all of them, but Bucky got the same feeling sitting next to her that he did when he was in close proximity to Natasha - there was something dangerous coiled up in her, lightning-quick and deadly.  She was the one to watch out for.  The others, with their broad shoulders and muscles, stood out as a threat.  Renée could slip under the radar.

Michael let out a surprised grunt when Joshua landed a solid punch to his solar plexus.  A well-placed kick and a tug and Michael was down, flat on his back with Joshua proudly pinning him to the floor.

“What next?” Joshua asked, and didn’t get up, even when Michael scowled and tried to push him off.

Bucky shrugged.  “Why’re you looking at me?”

Joshua blinked.  “You’re our new handler, aren’t you?”

Bucky suddenly felt nauseous, and did not say anything - his heart was in his throat.  Joshua and Renée were looking at him expectantly, Michael was still trying to leverage Joshua’s knee off his sternum, and Bucky was only barely managing to keep his lunch down.

“No,” he said, though it came out hoarse.  “No, I’m not your handler.  Joshua, get off him.”

Joshua looked for a second like he wasn’t going to listen, but he reluctantly eased off of Michael’s ribs after a moment.  Michael, red in the face, looked both disgruntled and grateful.

“What are you, then?” Renée asked.  Her little kicking feet hit the bed frame with soft sounds.  

Bucky rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, unsure.  He had been unsure ever since Steve had dropped his shield on the helicarrier all those months ago, he’d been unsure ever since Steve has knocked the mask off his face and said his name as though it would break him when it left his mouth.

(Sometimes Bucky wondered if it had.)

“I’m a friend,” he said, wetting his lips.  “And I’m one of you.  They did the same shit to me.”

“Like hell you’re one of us,” Michael said, gingerly poking at a new bruise on his jaw.  “They warned us about you.”

“Oh yeah?  What’d they say?”  Bucky held his gaze steadily, unimpressed.  “That I’m out of control?  Outdated?  That you’re the newer, better versions of a vintage model?  You know that’s all bullshit.”  

Michael and Joshua shared a loaded glance.  “Is it, though?” Joshua asked.  “I mean, you... aren’t exactly perfect at your job.”

Bucky thought about Steve, alive and breathing, probably comparing price tags at Target and furrowing his brow at the idea of spending so much money at once.  He had to smile to think of it, and then he was laughing, ducking his head as it shook him.  “Jesus Christ, neither are you,” he said, laughter still clinging to his voice.  “Two hotheaded supersoldiers with death wishes kidnapped you with nothing but zip ties some particularly earnest expressions.”

Michael frowned.  “Hey - ”

“If you didn’t want to be here,” Bucky continued as if Michael hadn’t spoken, “You wouldn’t be here.  I know you.  I know all of you, I know what you’re capable of.  If you wanted to be gone, you already would be.”

Renée’s feet stopped kicking.  “I wish you’d just tell us what to do,” she said.  “It was easier when they told us what to do.”

If Natasha had been here, she would have but an arm around Renée’s shoulders and been a comfort, but Bucky was not like her.  He didn’t know how to use touch as a tool.  He had gone without touching for so many years that it was a dead giveaway, now, for his sincerity; he could not touch anyone casually, not without planning it far in advance.  He envied Natasha, who had acquired this skill and perfected it while he had been frozen in stasis.

So he didn’t touch Renée, but he did hold her gaze as best he could, and hoped that was enough.  “Sorry, kid,” he said gently.  “I can’t do that for you.  Not this time.”

 

* * *

 

Steve came home with groceries and clothes, blond hair sticking to his forehead from sweat.  Bucky had forgotten it was summer.  Well, he hadn’t exactly forgotten, but he was enjoying the warmth so much that it hadn’t occurred to him to be uncomfortable yet.

“I had to guess on some of the sizes,” Steve panted.  “But I think it should work out alright, assuming I didn’t forget what numbers mean.”

“I’m pretty confident in your counting abilities,” Bucky said, and took one of the bags from off Steve’s hip.

He and Steve put the groceries away in comfortable silence.  Bustling around the kitchen with Steve felt familiar, felt like Brooklyn; the sticky heat of the summer only added to this effect, calling up images of the damp spot on Steve’s tank top right between two sharp shoulder blades, collar bones jutting out of his body like they were trying to escape.  Setting sunlight pulling gold and pink out of Steve’s skin.  Bucky wasn’t sure why this is what he remembered, but he let himself remember it anyway.  Every visible rib.  Every wet breath.  Dying plants lined up like soldiers on the windowsill, waiting for Steve to give up on them and toss them out the way he did every time.  Their little kitchen, laid out in organized chaos, Steve humming tunelessly to himself as he did the dishes or burned dinner.

“Hey Buck,” Steve said cautiously.

“What’s up?” Bucky asked, reaching on his tip toes to shove a box of pasta onto the top shelf.

“I was just wondering, um.  How much you’re remembering these days.”  

Steve was pointedly not looking at him, fiddling with the plastic packaging on some tortillas, but Bucky wasn’t buying it for a second.  “Enough,” he answered, and put a bunch of bananas on the table with a little more force than necessary.  “To get by.  Probably not as much as you want, though.”

“There’s no pressure,” Steve said too quickly, and startling bustling around the kitchen again, though he was more flustered this time.  He’d gone a bit pink in the face.  “I was just, you know.  Wondering.”

Bucky looked up at him, worrying his lower lip thoughtfully as he considered the guilty way Steve was examining the nutrition facts on a can of crushed tomatoes.  “We were in love, weren’t we,” he said, and perched himself on the table to watch Steve’s reaction.

Steve dropped the can of tomatoes on his foot and yelped, swearing, which was pretty much what Bucky had expected.

“You could’ve just said something instead of waiting for me to bring it up,” Bucky said, hiding his smile behind a stern expression.  “You big chicken.”

Steve shrugged a sheepish shoulder, and it was hard not to openly grin at him when he was wincing and balancing on one foot.  “I didn’t want to _pressure_ you, okay, you can stop looking at me like that - ”

“Oh my god,” Bucky said.  “Shut up.”

It felt good to hop off the table and press Steve up against the counter, even when Steve dropped the can again, hands jumping like startled birds before they landed on Bucky’s shoulders.

“You don’t have to do this,” Steve said, eyes blown wide open, mouth half open.  Bucky could feel his shaky breaths tremble against his own body.  “Only if you’re _sure_ \- ”

Bucky didn’t bother letting him finish, he just kissed him until he couldn’t help but laugh against Steve’s soft, familiar mouth.

 

* * *

 

The soldiers loved their new clothes, even though they didn’t show it much.  Bucky could tell, though.  Renée especially seemed taken by them, eyes wide, and she wouldn’t stop playing with the hem of her shirt when she put it on.  Roque smiled to himself when he thought no one was looking at him.  Lucy didn’t put them on, not immediately, but she folded them up with enough reverence that Bucky wasn’t too worried.

“We’re gonna mess them up when we fight,” Joshua said.  “You know that, right?”

Steve shrugged.  “So we’ll get you more.  You’re probably gonna need more anyway, this is just one outfit to get you started.”

Joshua nodded calmly enough, but he didn’t meet anyone’s eyes for a while, just looked down at the shirt he was holding in his hands.

Bucky couldn’t stop touching his lips.  He knew he ought to knock it off - the other soldiers, although overwhelmed by Steve’s gifts, were still more than capable of putting the pieces together - but he just couldn’t stop.  He’d never been this aware of his body before, his warm hands and mouth, and this wasn’t helped every time he dragged his thumb over his lower lip and looked up to find Steve’s eyes tracking the movement.

He swallowed hard.  Not the time or place.

 

* * *

 

“Steve?”

All the soldiers were asleep, as far as Bucky could tell, so there was no more putting it off.  He hovered in Steve’s doorway, phone in hand, and was surprised to find that Steve was flipping through a couple manilla files already, grainy photos of the ocean prison and security system stats spread out over the top of his bed.

“Hey, Bucky,” Steve said.  “C’mere, I could use your help.  I’m trying to figure out how to break Sam out of jail.”

“Hm, that sounds illegal,” Bucky said, padding in his sock feet over to the foot of the bed, where he sat down.

“And that sounds like something you’d care about.”  Steve pointed to one photograph in particular.  “Look at this.  Think I could smash this?”

Bucky scooted closer to Steve on the bed, knocking their shoulders and elbows together.  “Fists or shield?”

“Either.  Both.  I don’t know, whatever works.”

“Mm.  Specific.”  Bucky picked up the picture, examining the keypad and door hinges with narrow eyes.  “I mean, sure?  Sort of want to know why you _want_ to, though.”

Steve looked sheepish.  “It’s my fault Sam is there,” he admitted.  “I need to get him back out.  I owe it to him.”

“No, no, of course you want to get Sam out,” Bucky said.  “I just don’t think you need to be worried about smashing things all by yourself, that’s all.”

Steve blinked.  “Why’s that?”

“You’ve got six ex-HYDRA supersoldiers living under your roof,” Bucky said, shrugging.  “I think you can afford to use your imagination a little.”

 

* * *

 

In WWII, Bucky got used to taking the rough and dirty missions that no one else was willing to take.  Even before Steve and the other Howling Commandos caught up with him, he was the guy that was took the suicide missions and came out the other side still breathing.  He’d never been quite sure if this was because he wanted to save people or because he didn’t much care what happened to him, but he suspected it was a little bit of both.

Once the war front had numbed him, he’d been willing to do almost anything to feel something again, even if that something was fear.  

In the history books, it’d been Steve with a death wish, Steve without a parachute, Steve with the experimental tactical maneuvers and a sheepish smile when he won.  Everyone seemed to forget who it was that was bent over the map next to him, mud on his face, grinning with dark hair and sharp teeth.

 

* * *

 

“If we’re even going to _consider_ this,” Steve said, “Then we’re going to talk to them first.  It’s not fair to use them without asking.”

“Of course we’re gonna talk to them, Jesus Christ,” Bucky said, slightly offended.  “I wasn’t planning on whipping out the book of trigger words, Rogers.”

Steve looked chagrined, and poked at the map a little more.  “Sorry.”

Bucky picked up the prison schematic again, holding it up to the light.  “You got these from Natasha, right?  So we know they’re accurate?”

“I trust her,” Steve said simply.

Bucky supposed that was fair enough.  “I’ll talk to the soldiers, then.  See if they’re up for the mission.”  He paused, rubbing a hand over his chin.  “I don’t... think we can do it without them.”

Steve looked pained.  “I know.”

It was strange, the way Steve was looking at him, all melancholy reverence and longing.  There was no reason for him to look like that, not anymore, so Bucky put down the maps and sat next to Steve so he could put a hand on his knee.  It was smooth and warm under his hand.

“You feeling guilty about Sam?” he asked, thumb rubbing circles into the inseam of Steve’s jeans.

“A little,” Steve said.  

“You feeling guilty about me?” Bucky added, risking a glance upward to meet Steve’s eyes.  Steve looked away, which was answer enough.  “You don’t have to, you know.  I’m okay.”

“Are you, though?” Steve carefully put his hand over Bucky’s, and Bucky could feel the gentleness of his touch, even through the pressure plates on the top of his metal hand.  Steve was always so gentle with him.  “Having the soldiers here.  Is it helping you?”

Bucky shrugged a shoulder, noncommittal.  “Maybe,” he said.  “Probably.  I don’t know.”

Steve’s hand smoothed up his arm, fingertips skating over his shoulder blade and all the tired, aching muscles on the left side of his back.  Bucky stiffened under his touch, but did not pull away, even when Steve leaned forward to press a kiss right in the middle of the red star.

“I’m glad we saved them,” Steve said quietly.  “I probably wouldn’t have if you hadn’t made the decision for us.”

Bucky threaded his right hand’s fingers through Steve’s soft hair.  “Still don’t know why I did it.”

Steve pushed the sleeve of Bucky’s t-shirt up so he could kiss the scars that splintered out from the line where Bucky’s metal arm met flesh.  It was a strange sensation - Bucky didn’t have much feeling in those scars, it was almost a dead zone - but it made him shudder all the same.  Especially when he felt the tip of Steve’s tongue trace one of the larger knots of scars.

“You knew they weren’t bad inside,” Steve said, tucking his face into the crook of Bucky’s neck.  Bucky tipped his head back to give him more room.  “And you were right.  You made the right call.”

Bucky didn’t say anything, didn’t even make a sound, just shook under Steve’s attention and let waves of warmth wash over him.

 

* * *

 

“So you do need us for a mission after all,” Lucy said, one eyebrow raised.

“That isn’t what he’s saying and you know it,” Roque said, to Bucky’s surprise.  He wasn’t usually the talkative one.  “Is it, Barnes?”

Bucky swallowed hard.  “Of course not.  This is up to you.”

“We don’t usually get a say in what orders we follow,” Joshua said.  

“That’s because they aren’t orders,” Bucky said.  “This isn’t a war, and I’m not your CO.  I don’t mean to let anyone make you do shit, not anymore.”

There was a long silence after that.

“Do you have a plan?” Roque asked eventually, eyes hard.

Bucky reshuffled his papers, not for the first time.  “Not really.  Not a complete one, anyway.  We won’t be able to plan for every contingency.”

Michael snorted.  Joshua elbowed him.  “We never plan for every contingency,” Michael explained when Bucky looked at him.  “Roque’s just asking for a plan ‘cause he’s the only one that cares.”

“I sort of care,” Renée said.  “Only a little, though.”

“Well,” Bucky said, smiling slightly.  “In that case, I may have just the thing.”

He laid out the maps, showed the team the potential entry plan, the guard stations and motion sensors.  He walked them through the obstacles they could plan for and discussed the ones they couldn’t.  They didn’t know what was waiting for them in there, aside from Sam, Clint, Wanda and Scott, but that didn’t matter.  They were Steve’s friends, and Steve was loyal to his friends ‘til his last breath.

Looking around at the soldiers, all bickering about what weapons they were bringing, Bucky was beginning to realize that he was as well.

“Suit up,” he told them.  “There are enough tac vests for all of us in the plane.”

 

* * *

 

Despite the exciting posters and propaganda, most of WWII was made up of waiting.  Waiting for orders, waiting for the enemy to show, waiting for an opening to strike - the newsreels and the papers never understood just how much time there was between bouts of violence, the sheer volume of hours that were spent doing next to nothing.

Bucky had spent most of that waiting in Steve’s tent, between Steve’s legs, one hand covering Steve’s mouth to keep him quiet.  Steve’s new body had been a fascination, then, but a desperate one; Bucky didn’t want to die without knowing that body as well as he had known the small, sickly one that used to get swallowed up by Bucky’s old cast-off shirts.

Bucky didn’t remember all of the separate times he waited, but he let them trickle back into his brain in whatever order they came to him.  Waiting for the bus.  Waiting for the sun to rise in the trenches.  Waiting for Steve to touch him.  Waiting for Steve after his mother’s funeral.  Lying in the snow where he had fallen from the train, waiting for Steve to come and find him.

He pieced these all together as the plane flew the seven soldiers to the prison in the middle of the ocean, waiting one more time for the war to catch up with their bodies.  It never got any easier, but at least this time he could put his hand on Steve’s thigh without worrying about being caught.  And Steve’s face at the contact, surprised and somehow grateful, was worth the wait.

Bucky hoped he was worth the wait as well.  He knew Steve had been waiting more than long enough.

 

* * *

 

With five extra soldiers, it wasn’t difficult to make it past the preliminary guards. It was obvious that they weren’t expected, and even if they were, their augmented numbers had not been taken into account.  Roque and Joshua were the first wave, while Michael and Lucy guarded Steve and Bucky’s unprotected backs.  

Renée was their trained tech expert, so she was the one that attacked the fingerprint and retinal scanners with a ferocity that was, frankly, frightening.

“I feel sort of obsolete,” Steve muttered, and Bucky had to stifle a laugh when he nodded in agreement.

“Done,” Renée chirped happily when the doors opened, but Bucky’s heart sank when he saw the next room filled with laser sensors.

“Fuck,” Steve said desperately.

“Here,” Michael said, shrugging out of the windbreaker jacket he’d borrowed from Steve and handing it to Joshua.  “I’ve got this.”

Three things happened at once.  First, ten guards rounded the corner, probably summoned by a silent alarm or by a trap that one of the team had accidentally triggered on the way in.  Second, Michael began to backflip through the lasers with an uncanny ease that made Bucky’s mouth drop open.  Third, Roque, Joshua, and Lucy engaged the oncoming guards in a fight that didn’t seem human, let alone fair.

Suddenly, it made sense why they were only vaguely interested in planning out every detail.

“What the fuck,” Steve said.

“What were you saying about being obsolete?” Bucky asked, slack-jawed.

Renée frowned at the both of them.  “You must have seen us in action before,” she said, although it was with a small amount of hesitation.  “You helped train us, remember?”

“HYDRA took all of that from me,” Bucky said, watching Michael finish his acrobatics and end up on the other side of the room, where he sketched a little bow.  “I’m still getting it all back.”

Michael turned off the lasers so the rest of them could get across, and even from a distance, Steve could see the smug look on his face.

“Prick,” Joshua muttered, wiping blood off his mouth with the back of his hand.  He seemed barely out of breath.  He slung the windbreaker over his shoulder as he crossed the floor, like he’d done this a thousand times before, like this was _normal_ \- but then, Bucky supposed, for them, it was.  

He was the strange one.  The one Winter Soldier out of all of them that didn’t have a team.  All he had was Steve.

“If your schematic was right, the prison should be behind this door,” Lucy said, tying her hair up again where it had fallen out of its ponytail during the scuffle.  “Renée, see if you can remotely turn off the security cameras.”

Renée held out her hand.  “Cell phone, please.”

Steve took his iphone out of his pocket and put it into her hand.  Half a minute of furious typing later, Renée looked up unhappily.  “Sorry.  Stark himself must’ve had a hand in this - I can’t hack it without access to the main computer.”

“We’re good, but we’re not that good,” Lucy said.  “Plan B?”

Renée shrugged.  “Fly in blind?”

Lucy looked at Roque.  “What do you think?”

“Honestly?”  Roque raked a hand through his hair.  “I don’t see how they can stop us.  I say we go in.”

“Seconded,” Joshua and Michael said at the same time, and then scowled at each other.

“Settled, then,” Steve said.  “As long as you’re game, Buck.”

Bucky grinned.  “Hell, I’m always game.  Open the doors, Renée.”

Renée did.

The inside of the prison was so reminiscent of HYDRA that Bucky tasted bile the second he walked inside.  The harsh fluorescent lights, the cells packed close like sardines, the people inside with their red-rimmed eyes and half-dead expressions, all of it was too familiar for comfort.  Bucky had lived the last seventy years of his life in a cryochamber in a cell like that.  He knew what that felt like.

“There!” Renée said, pointing.

“Sam,” Steve said, and took off.  Bucky followed.

“Hi,” Renée said once the three of them had made it to Sam’s cell.  “We’re here to rescue you.”

“You know, I put that together,” Sam said, astonished.  There was a green and purple bruise blooming on his face, not old, but not new, either.  Bucky felt his own face ache in sympathy.  “Who’s the cavalry, Steve?”

“Explain it to you once we’re out,” Steve said.  “Now stand back, I’m gonna smash the lock on your door.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Sam said, grinning, and stepped back.  Bucky could hear the relief that was hanging heavy in his voice.  Sam was a soldier, and like every other soldier Bucky had known, Sam was very familiar with having to wait.  Bucky just hoped they hadn’t kept him waiting too long.

 

* * *

 

Clint, Scott, and Wanda stole a helicopter and took off - there wasn't enough room in the plane for all of them, and Bucky suspected that they were going to go meet up with Natasha secretly.  It was probably wise to split up, anyway.  He knew they needed to scatter if they didn't all want to be captured by the US government.

In the belly of the small plane back to the safe house, it was time to get patched up.  For all their bickering before and during the fight, Michael was the one that cleaned Joshua up, hands surprisingly gentle.  Bucky let Sam take shotgun while Steve flew, and that put him in the back with the rest of the team, distributing band-aids and ice packs and hand sanitizer.  Most of it was unnecessary, considering the supersoldier healing factor; but there was no harm in being thorough, and the soldiers seemed to find being taken care of mildly amusing, which was a sort of sweet side benefit.

“Next time someone tries to punch you in the face, duck,” Michael said, swiping at the cut on Joshua’s eyebrow with an alcohol wipe.  “It’s common sense.”

“I was fighting three people while you were doing fucking cartwheels, okay, I had my hands full,” Joshua replied, but there was no malice in his tone.  He stayed still for Michael’s careful cleaning.

Sam and Steve were talking quietly in the front of the plane, and Bucky could guess what about.  He stayed in the back of the plane where he was comfortable, listening to the low murmur of voices wash over him, eyes drifting closed.

“Thank you,” Renée said softly.

Bucky cracked open an eye to look at her.  “What for?”

She shrugged a shoulder.  “Giving us a choice, I guess.”

“Hey.”  Bucky handed her an ice pack for her ankle, which had gotten twisted on the way out.  “Always, kid.  And that’s a promise.”

 

* * *

 

Steve jokingly offered to give Sam a ride into the house, but then Sam actually took him up on it, so Steve picked him up bridal-style and carried him inside like he weighed nothing.  Bucky took the opportunity to take a picture of the two of them to set as his phone background.

“Is that normal?” Michael muttered to Joshua as they followed the two indoors.  “That’s not normal, right?”

“Hell if I know,” Joshua muttered back.  “ _You_ wanna be carried?”

“Yes please,” Renée interrupted, so Joshua let her jump on his back like a monkey for the rest of the short trip.  Bucky took a picture of that too.

Steve put Sam on the couch, propped him up with pillows, and got him a new ice pack for his face.  They’d run out of the standard issue kind, though, and all that was left were the ones Natasha got for Clint’s kids when they were over.  Sam refused to put the Captain America ones on his face (“Kind of a busman’s holiday,” he said), so that left a couple Hello Kitty ones that were pink and purple.

“Perfect,” Sam said.  “Now you two - ” He gestured at Steve and Bucky.  “ - Finish explaining to me what the hell it is that you got up to while I was locked up.”

The other soldiers wandered into the kitchen to make lunch.  Steve and Bucky did their best with their story - skipping over certain parts, of course, though there was a meaningful pause in the narrative where Steve coughed into a fist and turned pink - and by the end of it, Sam seemed much more relaxed at the idea of sharing a house with five winter soldiers he’d never met before.

“So lemme get this straight,” Sam said, and Bucky was impressed by how well he was hanging onto his dignity, considering the Hello Kitty ice pack that was currently obstructing most of his face from view.  “You got to the winter soldiers before Zemo did, you had a clear shot, and you decided to break them out instead?”

“Technically, it was Bucky’s idea,” Steve said awkwardly.

“Thanks, pal,” Bucky said, and punched him in the arm.  “It worked out, didn’t it?”

Sam glanced back, where Michael was helping Roque mix up batter for pancakes.  “Maybe,” he agreed.  “They seem to work together pretty well.  I wasn’t expecting that.”

“I was,” Bucky said.  Steve and Sam looked at him.  “I mean, look at ‘em.  They’re a family.”

Sam nodded slowly.  “I wasn’t expecting that, either.”

Well.  That was fair enough.  Bucky couldn’t remember everything, but he could remember honor among thieves, the frantic desperate connections formed when HYDRA’s higher-ups weren’t looking.  Friendship was dangerous, family even more so, but there was no way to stay whole unless you had someone to hold onto in the dark.  The five soldiers hung onto each other, Bucky and Natasha had clutched tight to each other’s hands when they could, and even now, Bucky found himself keeping Steve in the corner of his eye, just in case.

You held onto your friends so tight that even the memory of them stuck to your skin.

“You want some coffee, Sam?” Steve asked, squeezing Sam’s shoulder.

“Yes, please,” Sam said.  “With a little splash of whiskey?  It’s been a long day.”

Steve laughed.  “I can arrange that.”

 

* * *

 

Two missions before that fateful train ride through the Alps, Bucky and Steve were huddled up around a fire with the rest of the Commandos, taking turns burning the beans.  Dum Dum was smoking a cigar he’d pick-pocketed from one of their superiors, Dernier was asleep on Gabe’s shoulder, Morita was writing a letter to his sister, and Falsworth was sighing as he poked at the slightly smoking pan with a stick he’d found somewhere in the woods.

When Bucky sat down and thought about being happy, sometimes he thought of Brooklyn, but more often than not, he thought about the small crew around the fire.  He and Steve could stay close in the dark with no questions asked, littlest fingers entwined under a scratchy wool blanket.

They’d stay like that, watching the smoke drift up toward the moon, until the sun rose.  Orange sparks from the fire were not as bright as the hushed laughter that they traded back and forth until the first rays of sunlight crested through the trees.

 

* * *

 

“What d’you think, Steve?” Bucky asked, sitting on the bed while he watched Steve change into his pajamas through his eyelashes.  The moonlight coming in through the window turned the outline of Steve’s body black and white, like an old silent movie that Bucky could reach out and touch.  “Pretty good mission, yeah?”

Steve smiled at him.  “Pretty good mission,” he agreed, and pulled his tank top on over his head.  The smooth creamy skin of his shoulders was still bare, though, and Bucky did reach out to touch this time, sliding his hands up Steve's strong arms.  He wanted to re-learn the muscles and bones of this body, if he was allowed.

“Can we keep ‘em?” he asked as he tugged at Steve until he joined him on the bed.  “I promise I’ll feed and house-break ‘em.”

“What, the soldiers?” Steve asked as he clambered into Bucky’s lap, knees on either side of Bucky’s hips.  “I mean, if you think you’re responsible enough - ”  He pressed his grin to Bucky’s mouth, stealing a quick kiss.  “ - Then yeah, I think we already decided to.”

“When did we make that decision?” Bucky asked, amused.

“Oh, you know,” Steve said, cradling Bucky’s face between his warm, broad hands.  “The moment we broke ‘em out.”

**Author's Note:**

> The five soldiers unintentionally began to resemble the Leverage team the more I wrote, so I honestly just rolled with it.
> 
> I'm barneswilson on tumblr! Come say hi :)


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